* There's still almo
st 2 1/2 months until the Camping World East Series (Hey! I got it right on the first try!) opens its season at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, so Andy Santerre's got some time. But the 4-time driving champion turned car owner still isn't sure exactly what his lineup is going to be for 2008.
st 2 1/2 months until the Camping World East Series (Hey! I got it right on the first try!) opens its season at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, so Andy Santerre's got some time. But the 4-time driving champion turned car owner still isn't sure exactly what his lineup is going to be for 2008.All we really know is that Austin Dillon will pilot one of the cars out of the ASM stable, but what used to be the No. 44 is up in the air. Sean Caisse is still looking for employment in either the Nationwide Series or the Truck Series, but he's been unsuccessful, according to Santerre. Santerre also said last week that he's got a verbal commitment from Casella Waste Systems to sponsor the car again this season, but nothing had yet been signed on the dotted line.
Should Casella stay true to its word (and Santerre has no reason to believe they won't), it will be entirely up to them who they'd like to drive. That doesn't mean Caisse won't be back, but it also doesn't mean he will.
Welcome to big business, folks, NASCAR style...
* I'm not sure about this new 4-race Champions Series that PASS is offering this year. It's designed to give North Series and South Series drivers more incentive to compete head-to-head, but there are 2 glitches in the format as far as I'm concerned.
3 of the 4 races are in the south, and a driver needs only to compete in 3 events to be eligible. If Tom Mayberry's trying to get more North drivers to head south, this will likely encourage them to do that -- but if we're looking for South drivers to come this way, what's their incentive? They don't have to add up the travel costs, and they don't have to risk being uncompetitive on unfamiliar soil.
* The announcement last week that Torco would become the official fuel of the American-Canadian Tour may have seemed a curious one, but 2 different sources unrelated to one another passed on some interesting information to me in the aftermath.
Seems ACT had serious concerns about what teams were doing to fuel in the interest of finding a competitive edge. For a series rooted in close competition through evenly-matched race cars, it's as close to a scandal as you can have. If the best teams in the biggest races were that much better in cars with sealed engines and spec shocks, one has to wonder where the advantage came from.
Truth is, insiders were thinking that advantage was coming from the gasoline.
Having Torco eliminates the problem in 2 ways. First, everybody's using the same thing, purchased at the same place. But Torco also plans to meet with ACT this week, according to Torco distributor Rob Towers, and lay out a detailed plan for testing and inspecting fuel used by race teams.
* I'm sorry, but every time I hear Sprint Cup Series I have to laugh. I mean "sprint" -- who are we kidding? If that series has any problems, one of the biggest has to be that its races are anything but sprints. They're long, drawn-out affairs that make you feel like you just spent the day in the waiting room at the dentist's office.
* File this under the "Totally Shocking" department.
Won the media award at the Northeast Motorsports Expo, and I'm one of 5 finalists for the Speedway Expo media award this year. But somehow, I was left off the Speed51 media category this year.
Can you believe that?
Oh, and while we're on the subject of our favorite PR outfit, I had to chuckle when I saw their Top 10 short track racers list. Four of the top 7 were their own clients, including the top 2.
Now, I'm not suggesting that Joey Logano isn't the best young short track driver out there right now -- he was rightly named No. 1. But Donny Lia as the No. 2? Seriously? Ahead of any of the other guys on that list?
Heck, ahead of any of the Super Street drivers at Wiscasset Raceway???
Come on. This is exactly the kind of "journalism" that has been called into question both here and in other places this off-season. I guess doling out $4,000 a year gets you named one of the top racers in the country...
32 comments:
OK TB who were your top 10 drivers this year?
Seriously, you need to get off your high horse when it comes to 51. Everyone knows you don't like them for whatever reason. Eventually people are going to realize you're just out to get at them instead of doing your job.
And yes, they do have clients in their top-10 drivers. Know why? Because they won races. Your Wiscasset guys may be good, but did they win two Pro Cup races in their rookie year? Did they win a bunch of Mod Tour races like Lia?
Eventually TB, just get back to doing your job instead of criticizing what your colleagues do. You don't see 51 throwing jabs at you on their site, so if you back down off them, I think they and a lot of fans would probably respect you more. Maybe then you'd be on their list of Media people.
Plus, you've said a bunch of times how you don't like Speed51's "journalism," but you obviously go to the site to see that you were snubbed and to read the top-10 drivers. They must not be doing that bad of a job if you keep going there, right?
I go to your site everyday. I go to Speed51.com every day. I go to more. If it's short track racing news, I'll look at it. That's also what 99.9% of the fans do too. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean nobody should like them and vice versa.
And in Speed 51's defense it sayas "best publication", your isn't a publication is it? Don't get me wrong I read it everyday too.
The Wiscasset reference was meant in jest... Of course there's no comparison.
But answer me this, then -- how is it that not a single PASS North driver is on that list? Are you telling me that Ben Rowe isn't better than half the guys on that list?
Oh, wait, that's right. Speed 51 and PASS North aren't getting along these days, so why would we see any of that on there?
And it's more than fair to criticize my criticism of Speed 51. And I understand that most readers could care less...
But this being a blog for my own venting at times, I'm willing to point out where 51 falls short. After all, it was this summer and again this fall that representatives of that organization saw fit to criticize the manner in which I go about doing my job.
So I sound like a 6-year-old -- but "they started it."
TB
Wait, wait, wait...
Let it be known that in NO WAY do I expect to be nominated for an award like "best short track publication." Not in the least.
Don't let my cynicism lead you in the direction of believing that I'm so pompous I honestly believe I deserve some kind of national honor.
In fact, I e-mailed the Speedway EXPO people almost immediately after learning of that nomination to ask them how in the heck I ended up on a list of finalists I had no business being on...
TB
So who are your top ten?
Better be careful he'll shut his blog down.
Hey Travis....enjoy your trip down to Florida!...(Wish I was going again this year)...I hope your plan includes a number of evening trips to New Smyrna?...
Bring some warm clothes with you for that though!...it can get mighty chilly there at night!...
As far as the PASS "National Champion's" thing...
I think it's unfair to the north participants... I don't understand how Mayberry can come up with such a format?....
If any team from the south wins this without making two trips (equally) north, in all honesty, I cant see how they can be labeled a "National Champion"?
All things have to be fair (and equal) for the northern teams too...Sorry...I just think this present format is not fair to the northern teams and needs to be changed!...
Generally speaking, I dont like the north- south compitition very much anyway...IMO too much equipment gets destroyed when teams go south...
Look at all the carnage that took place down in Lakeland this past weekend?...Most Northern teams just cant afford those kins of trips to the south...
As far as Speed 51... it is what it is...they do a good job reporting and most racefans like that... I think most people enjoy voting in their polls for the fun of it too.. (I do)... Got to say I would like to see the final voting totals posted though...
I may have some reservations on some of their favorite picks...(especially so many of the young drivers)....
But I think, like most fans, I understand that they get paid to promote some of these drivers and I take 51's comments (and their endorsements) with a grain of salt...just like I would reading any press release by a raceteam, series or racetrack...
Its not all good nor is it all bad either IMO....its publicity, some paid for and some not...
I've got enough trouble piecing together a Top 10 stories list. There's no way I'll cough up a Top 10 drivers list...
The greater point is not who is on the list, but that a PR outfit's rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. Or two. Or three.
TB
TBIf you can't come up with a top ten than don't critique theirs bkgnheplease.
Tenbomber- how about your top ten, you must have a little free time on yours hands.
Yours top ten too Mark Truman- we know your reading.
And I think if PASS can get more money into the pockets of racers, more power to them.We all just want to see great racing.( I bet soon enough you'll see one of these southern guys come north )
wow...this has got to be the fastest blog response on record...faster than maineracer.com even....that ought to count for something.
Penny P.
A top ten in No particular order
Ben Rowe
Johnny Clark
Ryan Lawler
Jean Paul Cyr
Chrissy Wallace
Sean Caisse
Joey Lagano
Benny Gordon
Frank Kimmell
Patrick Laperle
Actually Ben is on the list
Listed as PASS and ACT driver
Annoy- nice top ten.
Komet- I think he ment top 7. Ben is 8th. Who's your top ten?
Yeah OK anonymous... I'll try to give you my top ten...
Let me say that these are my favorite tTour drivers in either prostocks or late models...(all from the north).. guys who when they show up, they make the race the race special (for me)...in no particular order...ok? ..heres two lists of ten...
veterans...
Ben Rowe (PASS)
Mike Rowe (PASS)
Scott Chubbuck (PASS)
Patrick Laperle (ACT)
Jean Paul Cyr (ACT)
Eddie McDonald (ACT)(BNS)
Sylvain Lacombe (ACT)
Johnny Clark (PASS)
Wayne Smith (CMPS)
Cassius Clark (PASS)
gosh.. theres others too... Dave Dion and Ralph Nason amoung them..
Heres ten of my tour favorites up and coming younger drivers...
Corey Williams (PASS)
Scott Payea (ACT)
Roger Brown (ACT)
Craig Slawnwhite (CMPS)
Shawn Turple (CMPS)
Ryan Nolan (ACT)
Trevor Sanborn (PASS)
Jean Francois Dery (ACT)
DJ Shaw (PASS)
Joey Polewrczyk (ACT)
I know I'm leaving someone out...and there are some favorite track regulars too that I dont get to see enough...like Eric Williams, (TR) Travis Adams and Ricky Rolfe (Oxford)(for instance)
I dont have a qualified opinion on the southern drivers....I dont see enough of their racing...
I dont see the mods too often either... but I sure like watching Kirk Alexander make a charge from the back of the pack... If I didn't cover late models and prostocks exclusively for LMD, I honestly would be at more TVMS events...
Thank you Tenbomber, nice list, like you say it's hard to name just ten. I also Like Richie Dearborn, seems to be getting better and better. Ramstrom is also pretty impressive for such a young kid. Another one would be Mckeage from BRMS, never seems to get any breaks though. Any Travis Benjamin has zero luck, but he's very consistant race after race.
Sorely missed this year was the great Jeff Taylor, he would be on everyones list if he we're still racing.
You gotta like Brent Dragon too- how about Joey Pole.
OK Tenbomber, who's your top 10 retires/ semi retired driver AND who is your favorite bad boy. If you have the time.
I am kind of shocked that besides one honorable mention, there were not any World of Outlaws Sprint or Late Model drivers in the list. You know, the guys who actually make a living running short tracks. Many of those guys might run/win more races in a month than most of those guys on the list will in a full season.
-JMB
good point JMB....theres a whole nother world of racing out there for those who choose to travel to see it...
I suppose if there were a WOO event close by to me on an off night, I'd love to take that series in...I used to watch some of those WOO dirt races on Speed Channel but haven't been keeping an eye open for their shows lately...
You are right though... those guys can certainly drive!... and they certainly are the true outlaws!.... cant imagine racing as often as they do on so many successive nights?... it certainly has to be a demanding lifestyle!... they must be interesting people to know?
I'd like to see Jeff Taylor return too...along with Tracy Gordon....Ralph and Dynamite Dave....Brad Leighton,Bobby Dragon, Junior Hanley...Kevin Lapage and Robbie Crouch...all in competitve prostock rides...or even ACT late models?...wouldn't that be something special for area race fans to see?
I'd love to see something along the lines of an oldtimers tour promoted somehow?...for instance maybe like three events at three differnent tracks with a good point fund for the car owners to share equally....(along with the normal purses)
Think anyone would pay to see these guys race again?
Mr. Barrett,
I've read your stuff and i think you are a pretty good journalist. But i, like many people, am a short track fan and it seems like you have a lot of issues you need to get over.
I know these things can turn into bashing deals, but i just want to ask you a couple of things and throw a couple of numbers out there to you. You're ripping of Speed51.com all the time just doesn't seem right, and sounds like you have something big time against them. And that is fine if you do, but no need to do it over and over and over.
I visit Speed51.com almost every day, and your website about once or twice a week. So i read all of these comments and did an unofficial tally... excuse me if my numbers are a little off, but i feel like i am pretty close.
there were 39 names listed in there power rankings, and i believe 8 of them are clients. That doesn't sound much like favoritism. And of those, you can't deny most of them. Maybe Kyle Hall, maybe Nick Stroupe. But there isn't much denying the others have performed on the track and have done things that deserve to be there. If you don't think those other guys deserve to be there, tell us why.
On top of that, i did a count and they have 54 driver names on the side of their web page listed as clients. And you are complaining becasue there were 8 listed in their rankings? 8 of 54? that is pretty small odds, so it doesn't seem to me that they are putting in just their clients. There are 46 other clients of theirs that didn't make the list. sounds like they are only putting up the clients that they feel deserve it. its hard to argue the facts and stats on the track.
Just my two cents. I'm not telling you what to do or how to do it, but i'm just saying, sometimes i think you make a bigger deal out of some of these things.
Thanks for your time.
JMB- I honestly don't know that many Late Model drivers, and most of the ACT races are in NH and VT- too far to travel with kids. Grew up watching alot of the Pro Stock Drivers so it's easier to follow them.
As far as WOO- I've never seen a show, they travel so far and it's dirt right? We don't race on dirt here. Doesn't mean their not great though.
Maybe the WOO should partner with Speed 51's P.R. dept, maybe then they would be racing household names.
It’s great to see the comments and have people taking an interest in short track racing and ranking their own top 10 drivers of the year.
A few things on the 51 Short Track Power Poll….
First off, it is decided by the combined votes of a number of racing journalists. There are some 51 writers on the panel, but there are others who don’t write for us on there as well…so in theory, that should take out some of the bias towards any clients. Actually, looking back at the Excel file of voting for that, I see things were pretty well split on Logano and Lia between 51 voters and non-51 voters.
There is going to be a bias towards any of the series that we cover and since we cover short track asphalt racing, that hurts DIRT Modifieds, WoO Sprints and WoO Late Models. Brett Hearn had such a great season, that transcended the bias a little bit. Honestly, I think that if we covered DIRT Modifieds regularly, he could have been a solid number one on the list.
We also tell our panelists to reward winning races as well as winning a championship. That helped guys like Logano and Lia – who won plenty of both, but hurt in series like PASS North or PASS South where the champion didn’t win the most races and the vote was split between the guy who did.
We got lots of votes for both Ben Rowe and Mike Rowe (who won four races, but not the title) in PASS North along with Ryan Lawler and Corey Williams (who won three races, but didn’t run the entire schedule) in PASS South for example, while Logano and Lia were clearly the class of their tours in 2007 when it came to victories and the championship.
Logano’s winning percentage on his own tour was 38.46% and Lia’s was 37.5%. By comparison, Ben Rowe’s winning percentage in PASS North was 7.14% and Lawler’s was 25% in PASS South.
Steve Carlson probably suffered a little bit in the voting because he wasn’t running a “tour”, but his NASCAR WAAS national championship was very impressive nevertheless.
Not winning much hurt anyone’s chances. Jean Paul Cyr owned the ACT championship this year but didn’t win a race. That hurt him when it came time to vote.
I counted four 51 clients in the top 11. Three were champions who won multiple races and one won two Pro Cup races as a rookie.
As far as honorable mentions go, the criteria there was much broader. If a panelist made a strong case for anyone in their top 10, they were included on the honorable mention list. That brought a few other people into the mix.
The lists like that are supposed to be fun and encourage debate…just like rankings in any other sport. Looks like it is doing just that.
On the 51s Awards, we have a category for best racing publication. That was the same category as we had for our last 51 Awards in 2007 , so it was not meant to exclude anyone that is writing for a general interest publication. There was a ton of research, suggestions and panelist input put into selecting the 51 nominees this year. Sadly, some worthy choices had to be cut because there just wasn’t enough room for everyone, but in the end I think that we presented a very thorough, fair and complete list for short track fans to vote on. Yes, there are some clients nominated if they had a great year or fit into a group of nominees, but there are plenty of clients who were not nominated as well. The cool thing is that the fans are the ones who get to decide the winners.
I’m always glad to answer any questions about what we do at Speed51.com or 51 Sports, so feel free to e-mail me personally at Twist@speed51.com if you have any.
Actually if Speed 51 had any clue about dirt modified racing Kenny Tremont would be #1 (he did win the most small block dirt modified races in the northeast in '07).
Travis as someone who had a parent in the newspaper industry for over 25 years, I think you are right on about Speed 51. Anyone who has a shred of journalism integrity knows what a shame Speed 51 is. The saddest part is the people who are getting the wool pulled over their eyes thinking they are getting real journalism. Honestly, any serious “journalist” is working somewhere other than Speed 51.
Yes Andy and any serios "racefan" is not listening to you. I'll take the wool being pulled over my eyes over listening to your mean nothing opinion any day.
Andy you just need to go crawl back into your hole and stop thinking you know everything. Every channel of racing news is great weather it's TB, speed 51, Maine Racing or others. They all work their tails off to keep the fan informed. Just because speed 51 doesn't do a lot of ACT coverage doesn't make them bad. What company do you write for?
Andy and TB- please enlighten us with your choice of reading materials.
If Andy and TB are so against Speed 51, how come they always seem to be talking about their stories?
I guess that because the Pro Stock vs. Late Model argument is getting stale there needs to be a Racing Information Site #1 vs. Racing Information Site #2 argument.
God forbid that people who love short track racing should band together to provide better racing, better coverage, and better fan involvement.
What's next, Pompous Fan #1 vs. Pompous Fan #2? Oh, wait....
Travis...thank you for reporting and blogging.
Speed51/Twist...thank you for the information I can get off your website too.
Hey...it is what is...I get that.
Actually anom, I don't go to Speed 51 site any more and my life is much richer for it.
It's not so much that they don't cover ACT racing that bothers me, it's that they can't seem to get their facts straight when they do. Between that and the huge conflict of interest, I have no use for that site.
I can see where Travis (and I'm sure many other journalist) would take offence to a company coming in and just blatantly disregarding the industry code of ethics. It’s nice to see a few reporters still remember what those are; because the information we get from them depend on it.
i can't see were the deffirence between late models and pro stocks are.no difference between late models and mini stocks. some people loke to watch each one. myself i like to see all of them i've seen mini's run alot better races than the pro's or late models.it all depends on what you want to watch
Holy Moly! I got called out in Travis Barrett's blog!!
I couldn't put a very good top ten drivers list together. I've really only been a PASS\Oxford\ACT fan the past 8 years and couldn't begin to rank all short track drivers.
However, I will say this, if I went to Oxford Plains Speedway in the middle of July 2008 and you told me to pick a winner of the race and anyone from PASS\Oxford\ACT could be in it, I'd say:
1. Ben Rowe
2. Patrick Laperle
3. Mike Rowe
4. Johnny Clark
5. Jean-Paul Cyr
6. Cassius Clark
7. Scott Payea
8. Travis Adams
9. Richie Dearborn
10. D.J. Shaw
This is based on equipment, experience at the track, and just the intangibles I've seen.
The other names that bounce off my brain are Dion, Ramstrom, Sanborn, Potter, Rolfe, Brown, Benjamin, Dragon.....and now I'm having to think too hard.
There you have it.
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